


Social Services

by RebaK1tten



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Angst, Gen, Mental Illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-02
Updated: 2013-02-02
Packaged: 2017-11-27 23:32:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/667719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RebaK1tten/pseuds/RebaK1tten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I prompted this on a CM Fic site and decided to fill it myself.  </p>
<p>A social worker came to check on Reid and his Mom once. She really should have minded her own damn business.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Social Services

 

It was nearly midnight when Spencer got home, dirty and exhausted.  He stops in the kitchen to rinse his hands and drinks two glasses of water and then quietly enters the living room.  “Mom?  Are you awake?”

“Yes, Spencer, I’m in here,” his mother calls out.  She’s sitting by the front window, a stack of books on the table next to her and one in her lap.  Fortunately, she looks calm.  “Did you take care of everything for us?”

Spencer nods and sits on the edge of the couch across from her.  He hates being dirty, but needs to talk with her before he goes upstairs to shower.  “Yes, Mom, but you can’t do that again.  She wasn’t any danger to us, she wasn’t out to get us and…”

“You do not know that, Spencer!  You don’t know how the world works!  You don’t know what those people want to do, what they’ll do with us, to you!”  

He leans forward and takes her hand, “It’s okay, Mom, it’s okay.  We’re safe, she’s gone.  I’m just saying that it would be better if we avoided any notice in the first place.”

“You don’t know,” his mother mutters.  “The government, they’d take you and put you into a home.  Those homes, they’d abuse you, that’s all they’re for.  The only reason people want foster children is for the money and so they can abuse the children, that’s what they do, Spencer.  Take money from the government, and they don’t feed you and they’d rape you, and…”  He puts his arms around her and holds her while she rocks forward and back, sobbing and muttering, “I couldn’t let that happen, I couldn’t let you go like that.”

“It’s okay, Mom, it’s okay.  I took care of it.”

She slowly quiets down and wipes her eyes on the sleeve of her bathrobe.  “You did what we talked about?  You were careful?”

Spencer nods.   It’s been a long night and he’s mentally and physically exhausted, but runs through it, both to reassure her and reassure himself that he covered everything.  “Took the box of rat poison and it’s in one dumpster.  Tea cup is crushed and in another dumpster.  Her car is at the airport long term parking.   She’s wrapped in plastic and I buried her where they’ll lay a foundation in a couple of days.   One of the new developments in Henderson, in the next county.  On the way home, I stopped and washed the car and vacuumed all of it.”

His mother looks up sharply.  “You washed the car?  Did anyone see you?”

“I don’t think so and I think it was worth the risk.  I paid cash and I think it’s better to have the car cleaned and vacuumed without using our vacuum.”  He yawns and rubs his eyes, forgetting that his hands are still dirty.  “There wasn’t a lot of traffic and I didn’t pass one police car.  But, Mom, you really need to take your medicine.  Especially now, if they come to look for her here, you need to be sure you sound okay and don’t slip up.  And the pharmacist notices when you don’t get refills and he’s probably the one who told social services to check on us.”

She shakes her head, looking down.  “I don’t like those drugs, Spencer, I’ve told you.  They make things confusing and I need to be sharp to help protect you.”

“Mom, we need to protect each other.  I’ll be at college in a couple of months and you need to take the drugs so people leave you alone.   Remember what you say about being below the radar?”  He watches her continue shaking her head, talking quietly to herself and knows that he’s lost her for the night.  “I’m going to go take a shower and go to bed.  You should, too, you need your sleep.”

She looks up and her smiles wavers as she says, “That’s fine, William.  I’ll come up when you’re done.”

Spencer doesn’t say anything as he goes to the bathroom to shower.  He’ll be going to Cal-Tech in the fall, just a couple of months away.  His aunt will check in on his mother weekly.  He’s got someone coming in from a nursing agency twice a week.  There might be someone else he can get, he’s still got one or two possible agencies to track down that might be able to visit.  They have to be people his mother will accept and they have to be free or close to it.

He’ll be thirteen in the fall.  He just needs to keep her safe until he’s eighteen.   And he’ll cross that bridge when he comes to it. 

**Author's Note:**

> This started in my head as kind of Arsenic and Old Lace, but got rather dark. Not everyone with paranoid schizophrenia kills people. And 12 year olds shouldn't drive cars.


End file.
